nd how a criminal trial is conducted and decided when one of
the parties will not stick at any kind of bribery and intimidation.
The Church is powerful, the law grandiloquent. The words 'honesty' and
'integrity' have for centuries been ringing against the hardened walls
of courts of justice; but that has not prevented judges from being
false or verdicts from being iniquitous. Have a care; have a care! The
Trappist may start the cowled pack on his own track and throw them off
by disappearing at the right point and leading them on yours. Remember
that you have wounded many an _amour propre_ by disappointing the
pretensions of the dowry-hunters. One of the most incensed of them,
and at the same time one of the most malicious, is a near relative of a
magistrate who is all-powerful in the province. De la Marche has given
up the gown for the sword; but among his old colleagues he may have left
some one who would like to do you an ill-turn. I am sorry you were not
able to join him in America, and get on good terms with him. Do not
shrug your shoulders; you may kill a dozen of them, and things will
go from bad to worse. They will avenge themselves; not on your life,
perhaps, for they know that you hold that cheap, but on your honour; and
your great-uncle will die of grief. In short--"

"My dear abbe," I said, interrupting him, "you have a habit of seeing
everything black at the first glance, when you do not happen to see the
sun in the middle of the night. Now let me tell you some things which
ought to drive out these gloomy presentiments. I know John Mauprat of
old; he is a signal impostor, and, moreover, the rankest of cowards. He
will sink into the earth at the sight of me, and as soon as I speak I
will make him confess that he is neither Trappist, nor monk, nor saint.
All this is a mere sharper's trick. In the old days I have heard him
making plans which prevent me from being astonished at his impudence
now; so I have but little fear of him."

"There you are wrong," replied the abbe. "You should always fear a
coward, because he strikes from behind while you are expecting him in
front. If John Mauprat were not a Trappist, if the papers he showed me
were lies, the prior of the Carmelites is too shrewd and cautious to
have let himself be deceived. Never would he have espoused the cause of
a layman, and never would he mistake a layman for one of his own cloth.
However, we must make inquiries; I will write to the superior of the